[meteorite-list] The black stone in the wall of the Ka'ba (Part 3 of 3)

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 01:09:36 +0200
Message-ID: <004301cb65ab$8bb68a00$a3239e00$_at_de>

For the Wabar glass hypothesis - the Wabar craters are too young.

http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2004/2003JE002136.shtml


http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2003M%26PSA..38..155B


Best,
Martin

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von
bernd.pauli at paulinet.de
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 6. Oktober 2010 21:25
An: Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] The black stone in the wall of the Ka'ba (Part 3
of 3)

In 1980, however, Thomsen presented a different hypothesis. She suggested
that the stone may be a
chunk of impactite glass, mined from one of the meteorite craters at Wabar
in the so-called Empty
Quarter of central Saudi Arabia, about 1,100 km from Mecca. She pointed out
that the "whiteness
may derive from an exposure of the interior white core of a bomb or... from
a large fragment of
white glass or sandstone," and that the whiteness remains only where it is
protected by cement.
Further, she wrote: "The yellow and white spots may be remnants of glass
and/or sandstone.
The porosity which allows it to float is due to vesicles in the glass, and
the resistance of the
material to abrasion due to the hardness of the glass. The blackness results
from the nickeliferous
iron spherules captured from an explosion cloud of Ni and Fe." Thomsen also
thinks that ancient
Arabs may have observed the meteorite fall, estimated to have occurred about
six thousand years
ago, and that natives later carried the impactite glass to Mecca along a
caravan route.


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Received on Wed 06 Oct 2010 07:09:36 PM PDT